REGIONAL COMMITTEE Provisional Agenda item 9.6. Emergency Reform

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1 REGIONAL COMMITTEE Provisional Agenda item 9.6 Sixty-ninth Session SEA/RC69/14 Colombo, Sri Lanka 6 9 September July 2016 Emergency Reform In response to the evaluations conducted after the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in 2014 and recommendations of the several advisory groups called by the Director-General, WHO s reforms on its work in emergency management were implemented. These major evaluations conducted include: (i) the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, USA, (ii) Harvard School of Public Health and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, (iii) Stocking Report and (iv) Advisory Group on Emergency Reform. The discussions also touched on the IHR Review Committee Report. The new Programme as described in the Sixty-ninth World Health Assembly (WHAdocument WHA69/30) was approved by the Sixty-ninth World Health Assembly and is aligned with the principles of a single programme, with one clear line of authority, one workforce, one budget, one set of rules and processes, and one set of standard performance metrics. A short description of these areas is contained in Annex 1 including how the programme will be financed. The common structure reflects WHO s major functions in health emergency risk management as follows: (1) Infectious Hazards Management, includes high-threat pathogens, expert networks and, at WHO headquarters, the PIP Secretariat; (2) Country Health Emergency Preparedness and the International Health Regulations (2005) include monitoring and evaluation of national preparedness capacities, planning and capacity-building for critical capacities and, at headquarters, the IHR Secretariat; (3) Health Emergency Information and Risk Assessments includes event detection and verification, health emergency operations monitoring, and data management and analytics; (4) Emergency Operations includes incident management functions, operational partnerships and readiness, and operations support and logistics; (5) Management and Administration; and (6) External Relations. The Sixty-ninth World Health Assembly also passed a Decision and in summary, the components of this were as follows: Noting the progress made in the development of the new Health Emergencies Programme, the elaboration of an implementation plan and timeline for the new Programme, and the establishment of the Emergencies Oversight and Advisory Committee;

2 Encouraging the ongoing collaboration with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to enhance humanitarian system-wide coordination; Approving an increase of US$ 160 million for the Programme Budget (within a total of US$ 494 million) to initiate the implementation plan for the new Health Emergencies Programme, and to authorize the Director-General to mobilize additional voluntary contributions; and Requesting the Director-General to report to the Seventieth World Health Assembly on the progress made in this reform process. The High-Level Preparatory (HLP) Meeting held in the Regional Office in New Delhi, India, from July 2016 discussed the agenda item and made the following recommendations: Actions by Member States (1) Support further development of the Health Emergencies Programme to ensure commensurate role of Member States in the programme. (2) Promote regional solidarity by ensuring support to emergency funds through SEARHEF; this should include support for preparedness activities at the country level that will also complement the WHO Contingency Fund for Emergencies. Actions by WHO (1) Ensure that support and capacity-building under the Health Emergencies Programme will not be only for WHO staff but also for Member States. (2) Provide technical and operational support towards the integration of disaster management, preparedness and response to public health emergencies. (3) Support efforts and requests of Member States to continue with SEARHEF as a regional contingency fund that would include preparedness activities. (4) Develop a resource mobilization plan to further support regional needs under the Health Emergencies Programme. This Working Paper and its Annexure Reform of WHO s work in health emergency management, WHO Health Emergency Programme, Report by the Secretariat, is an update on the progress of the roll-out of WHO s emergency reform process for information and consideration of the Sixty-ninth Session of the Regional Committee for South-East Asia.

3 Reform of WHO s work in health emergency management WHO Health Emergencies Programme Report by the Secretariat Annexure 1. In May 2016, in decision WHA69(9), 1 the World Health Assembly decided to welcome the progress made in the development of the new WHO Health Emergencies Programme (see Annex), and to approve an increase of US$ 160 million for the Programme budget to initiate the implementation plan for the new WHO Health Emergencies Programme. In line with that decision, this paper reports on the appointment of the senior officials who will manage the new Programme, and on progress in advancing the implementation plan, resource mobilization, system-wide coordination in response to large-scale infectious hazards, and oversight. 2. Following the Health Assembly s decision, the Director-General announced the appointment of the Executive Director of the new WHO Health Emergencies Programme. On 8 July 2016, the Director-General announced both the appointment of Directors for the new Programme at headquarters and, in consultation with Regional Directors, the appointment of Regional Emergency Directors at the regional level. A rapid recruitment process will be implemented to expedite the filling of the remaining vacancies at Director level. 3. In accordance with decision WHA69(9), the Director-General approved the next steps to implement the new results framework and budget for for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme to initiate the transition to the new structure across the three levels of the Organization. The target is 1 September 2016 for establishing the new structure for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme in headquarters and the regional offices. The Director-General also approved a human resources process for aligning existing staff to the new structure, which will be implemented concurrently at headquarters and regional offices and which is scheduled for completion by 1 October In consultation with the Regional Directors, the Director-General is overseeing the design of a major change management process that will be conducted across the three levels of the Organization over a 12-month period to fully embed the new ways of working on emergencies in the culture of the Organization. 4. From 1 August 2016, WHO aims to operate under new emergency management processes for risk assessment, grading of emergencies and incident management. Interim protocols for each of those processes will be confirmed by the Director-General and Regional Directors by that date and remain in effect until the second edition of the WHO Emergency Response Framework is published, planned for 1 See

4 late Existing staff will be temporarily assigned to assist in the implementation of the new processes during the transition period through 1 October With respect to financing the new Programme, in decision WHA69(9), the Health Assembly, inter alia, authorized the Director-General to mobilize additional voluntary contributions to meet that financial need for the biennium Accordingly, WHO held a financing meeting in Geneva on 22 June 2016, which included Member States, partners, donors and other interested parties. The purpose of the meeting was to provide detailed information on the methodology for developing the budget of the new Programme, to explain the status of financing for each of the three components of that budget and to appeal for near-term financing to address priority funding gaps. As of 22 June 2016, US$ 183 million was available against the Programme s core budget of US$ 494 million for the biennium, US$ 25 million against the US$ 100 million capitalization target for the Contingency Fund for Emergencies, and US$ 85 million against the US$ 600 million financing target for WHO appeals for ongoing acute and protracted emergencies. A second financing meeting is planned for October November 2016 to address, as a matter of urgency, the core budget financing gap needed to operationalize fully the new WHO Health Emergencies Programme. 6. Further to decision WHA69(9), in which the Health Assembly decided to encourage ongoing collaboration with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to enhance humanitarian system-wide support for the response to large-scale infectious hazards in the future, on 7 June 2016 the Principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee agreed on the use of the coordination mechanisms of those two entities for that purpose. The engagement of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in infectious hazards would be under the strategic and technical leadership of WHO, in keeping with the Organization s public health mandate and its obligations under the International Health Regulations (2005). WHO will work with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Emergency Directors Group of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee to draft a set of standard operating procedures relevant to that work by September On 20 June 2016, the United Nations General Assembly discussed the report of the Secretary- General s High-level Panel on the Global Response to Health Crises. 1 WHO briefed the United Nations General Assembly on the decisions of the World Health Assembly and WHO s progress in their implementation. The United Nations Secretary-General announced the establishment of a global health crises task force to monitor, coordinate and support the implementation of the recommendations of High-level Panel as they relate to the United Nations system. 2 The Director-General of WHO and the President of the World Bank Group will co-lead the task force with the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General. The task force was effective on 1 July 2016 for a period of one year. It will meet on a quarterly basis, with the first meeting to be convened in late September See Protecting humanity from future health crises: Report of the High-level Panel on the Global Response to Health Crises, available at (accessed 12 July 2016) 2 More information on the task force is available in the United Nations Secretary-General s report, Strengthening the global health architecture: implementation of the recommendations of the High-level Panel on the Global Response to Health Crises, at (accessed 12 July 2016) - 2 -

5 8. The Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme was convened by the Director-General on 4 5 July The Committee discussed the status of implementation of the Programme against the 1 July 2016 milestones described in document A69/30, the performance of the Programme in current crises, and the status of and planning for the Programme s financing. ACTION BY THE REGIONAL COMMITTEE 9. The Regional Committee is invited to note the report

6 ANNEX SIXTY-NINTH WORLD HEALTH ASSEMBLY A69/30 Agenda item May 2016 Reform of WHO s work in health emergency management WHO Health Emergencies Programme Report by the Director-General 1. In resolution EBSS3.R1 (2015), the Executive Board at its Special Session on the Ebola Emergency made a number of requests of the Director-General. These involved wide-ranging reforms to be undertaken in WHO s work in outbreaks, humanitarian emergencies and crises. In keeping with decisions of WHO s governing bodies, 1 these reforms have been guided by an Ebola Interim Assessment Panel, 2 a Director-General s Advisory Group on Reform of WHO s Work in Outbreaks and Emergencies with Health and Humanitarian Consequences, 3 and a Review Committee on the Role of the International Health Regulations (2005) in the Ebola Outbreak and Response. The reform of WHO s work in emergencies is also aligned with the report of the United Nations Secretary-General s High-level Panel on the Global Response to Health Crises. 4 The present report provides an overview of the design, oversight, implementation plan and financing requirements for the new Programme. 5 WHO Health Emergencies Programme 2. The new Health Emergencies Programme represents a fundamental development for the Organization, complementing WHO s traditional technical and normative role with new operational capacities and capabilities for its work in outbreaks and humanitarian emergencies. The new 1 See resolution EBSS3.R1 and decision WHA68(10) (2015). 2 Report of the Ebola Interim Assessment Panel. Available at (accessed 2 May 2016). 2 May 2016). 3 See (accessed 2 May 2016). 4 See document A/70/723. Available at (accessed 5 Information on the various sections of governing bodies and other Secretariat documents that respond to recommendations of the panels, the Advisory Group and the Review Committee and of other major evaluations and relevant actions taken by the Secretariat, can be found at (accessed 2 May 2016)

7 Annex Programme is designed to bring speed and predictability to WHO s emergency work, using an all-hazards approach, promoting collective action, and encompassing preparedness, readiness, response and early recovery activities. The new Programme is aligned with the principles of a single programme, with one clear line of authority, one workforce, one budget, one set of rules and processes, and one set of standard performance metrics. 3. All WHO s work in emergencies is thus brought into a single programme, with a common structure across headquarters and all regional offices in order to optimize intra-agency coordination, operations and information flow. Relevant functions of the Programme are replicated at country level as appropriate. The common structure reflects WHO s major functions in health emergency risk management as follows: Infectious hazards management: this includes high threat pathogens, expert networks and, at headquarters, the secretariat of the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework; Country health emergency preparedness and the International Health Regulations (2005): this includes monitoring and evaluation of national preparedness capacities, planning and capacity building for critical capacities and, at headquarters, the secretariat of the International Health Regulations (2005); Health emergency information and risk assessments: this includes event detection and verification, health emergency operations monitoring, and data management and analytics; Emergency operations: this includes incident management functions, operational partnerships and readiness, and operations support and logistics; Emergency operations management and administration, and External relations. 4. A standing interdepartmental task force at headquarters and regional office levels will enable the programme to harness the broad range of expertise across WHO s technical programmes and networks, particularly for research and development, policy, capacity building for preparedness, health systems strengthening, and protracted crises planning and programming. These linkages are operationalized through mechanisms such as the WHO blueprint for accelerating research and development in epidemics or health emergency situations. 5. The Programme will be headed by an Executive Director. The Executive Director, who will be recruited through an international competitive process, will serve at the level of Deputy Director- General, reporting to the Director-General. The Director-General has enlisted an executive search firm to assist in this process and anticipates completing selection by the time of the Sixty-ninth World Health Assembly. The Executive Director will be responsible for technical oversight and standards, all strategic and operational planning, risk and performance monitoring, budget and staff planning, and interagency and partner relations. The Regional Directors are central to the success and implementation of the Programme, particularly by providing leadership in the application and enforcement of Programme standards, government and regional intergovernmental relations, interagency and partner relations at regional level, and the day-to-day management of emergency management activities in their regions. The Executive Director and Regional Directors will jointly recruit Regional Emergency Directors, who will have delegated authority for emergency activities in their regions, and will form part of the global management team of the new Programme. 6. Ultimate authority for WHO s work in emergencies rests with the Director-General. The day-today oversight and management of major outbreaks and health emergencies, including WHO Grade 3 events, Public Health Emergencies of International Concern and Level 3 emergencies under the United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee, will be delegated to the Executive Director, to optimize - 5 -

8 Annex the operational support of the entire Organization. The Director-General will delegate oversight and management of Grade 2 crises and major protracted crises, following a rapid, accurate and objective risk assessment under the Executive Director, to either the Executive Director or the relevant Regional Director, depending on the nature of the infectious hazard or health emergency event, the capacity and capabilities of the countries concerned, and of the WHO country offices and regions, and the degree of internationally coordinated support that is required. The Director-General will delegate oversight and day-to-day management of organizational readiness, Member State preparedness, longstanding protracted emergencies and Grade 1 response activities to Regional Directors. On a day-to-day basis the Regional Emergency Directors will report to their respective Regional Directors on the implementation of these emergency management activities in their regions and to the Executive Director on issues of policy, strategy, and operational planning related to such activities. In the management of graded emergencies, the reporting lines for the Regional Emergency Directors will align with the delegated authorities from the Director-General to the Regional Director or Executive Director. Regardless of the grade of an emergency, the Executive Director and relevant Regional Director will be kept fully apprised of the evolving risks and the performance of the response. 7. WHO Representatives and country offices will have important responsibilities for implementing and facilitating the activities of the Health Emergencies Programme, with their performance measured against standardized indicators. As part of their basic duties, all WHO Representatives will have mandatory responsibility for ensuring organizational and partnership readiness for the initial response to acute onset emergencies and, in the context of the International Health Regulations (2005), for supporting States Parties in key functions, particularly with respect to National Focal Points, monitoring and evaluation of core capacities, and the immediate notification and/or verification of newly detected or reported events. All WHO Representatives will be responsible for facilitating objective, joint external evaluations and in-country risk assessments as needed, under the responsibility of the Executive Director. In high-vulnerability, low-capacity countries, WHO offices will have dedicated staff to support Member States with their work in all-hazards preparedness and response capacity building. In settings of protracted crises, WHO will strengthen its in-country leadership, ensuring that, over time, all WHO Representatives receive the training given to Humanitarian Coordinators. Where health clusters have been activated, priority will be given to deploying long-term, properly trained Health Cluster Coordinators with sufficient staff to fulfil core cluster functions. For large-scale emergencies and high risk outbreaks, an Incident Manager and team will be appointed and deployed to complement the capacities of the Representative and country team. 8. A single, common results framework has been developed for the new Programme in order to standardize planning, budgeting, staffing, monitoring and feedback across all seven major offices and all 147 WHO country offices. The results framework reflects each of the major functions (and structure) of the Programme, articulates the major outcomes and outputs, and serves as the basis for a single budget and staff workplan. The development of the single budget and staff plan for the new Programme is the responsibility of the Executive Director, in consultation with Regional Directors, senior staff, and relevant WHO Representatives. The budget and staff plan will be submitted to the Director-General for decision. Day-to-day management of staff at regional and country levels will be through the Regional Director. In a major outbreak or acute emergency, the Executive Director will establish and manage a budget and workforce across WHO through the Incident Management structure. For major risk assessments and responses, the Executive Director will have the authority to relocate Programme staff from anywhere in the Organization within 72 hours. The Executive Director will consult with the Director-General, Regional Directors and Assistant Directors-General for the release of other WHO staff. 9. The WHO Emergency Response Framework will be revised and updated to serve as a single, common, all-hazards set of emergency management processes for WHO s work in organizational readiness, risk-assessment and response. New, standard processes have already been developed for risk assessments, grading of events, and incident management. All major infectious risks and all major - 6 -

9 Annex emergencies with health consequences including outbreaks will be assessed and/or graded by WHO using these standardized processes. All these standards are closely aligned with the processes in use by the wider humanitarian and crisis management system. The Executive Director will submit the outcomes of all major risk assessments and event gradings to the Director-General within 24 hours for decisions on grade, incident management, and leadership in consultation with Regional Directors. The single incident management system is increasingly improving the predictability and interoperability of WHO response activities. WHO country office readiness, including with local partners, will be assessed using a standardized format. Performance standards will be established or updated for each process. 10. Recognizing the special importance of rapid, accurate and objective assessments of risks that are of potentially high consequences, the Programme, under the Executive Director, will initiate within 72 hours an on-the-ground assessment when notified of a high threat pathogen (for example, humanto-human transmission of a novel influenza virus), clusters of unexplained deaths in highvulnerability/low-capacity settings, and other events deemed appropriate at the discretion of the Director-General. When feasible, the Programme will engage partner agencies with relevant expertise to assist in such risk assessments. The assessments will include an analysis of the capacity and capability of the countries concerned, and of the WHO country office and region. As with all risk assessments, the outcomes will be communicated to the Director-General through the Executive Director within 24 hours of completion of the assessment, together with recommendations of the Health Emergencies Programme on risk mitigation, management and/or response measures as appropriate. The outcomes of such risk assessments will be shared with Member States through their National Focal Points for the International Health Regulations (2005), or other channels as appropriate to the circumstances, and to the United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee and WHO Emergencies Oversight and Advisory Committee. 11. WHO s work in support of Member State preparedness will be aligned with the recommendations of the Review Committee on the Role of the International Health Regulations (2005) in the Ebola Outbreak and Response 1 and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction It is anticipated that the Programme s work in preparedness will be structured to support application by all States Parties of the new monitoring and evaluation framework for the International Health Regulations (2005) and assessments with the new joint external evaluation tool as requested; and that support for national preparedness planning and capacity building will be prioritized to highvulnerability, low-capacity countries with a focus on rapidly establishing the most critical core capacities for early warning, incident management, risk communications and safe hospitals. Preparedness planning and capacity building will be closely integrated with the Organization s work in health systems strengthening. The work of the new Programme on preparedness and disaster risk reduction will be finalized following the Health Assembly s consideration of the report of the Review Committee. 12. Work is progressing on the development of a unified set of emergency business rules and systems for operating rapidly and on a no-regrets basis in the areas of planning, human resource management, procurement and finance. Response planning is being standardized, using templates and standard procedures to rapidly enable common strategic and operational plans to be realized. Emergency finances are being made available immediately, through a minimum-burden application process to the new WHO Contingency Fund for Emergencies. Rapid deployment mechanisms are being designed for staff and consultants, both rostered and non-rostered, using new contractual modalities with appropriate insurance, duty of care and entitlements. A continuous business 1 See document A69/

10 Annex improvement system is being put in place to monitor, evaluate and improve core services, with systematic updating of standard operating procedures to reflect lessons learned. 13. Recognizing the important role that humanitarian actors and systems already play in outbreaks, and the need for a systematic approach to optimize that engagement in the face of large-scale, escalating outbreaks in the future, the Director-General initiated discussions on this issue with the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The Director-General and the Coordinator concur that the mechanisms used to coordinate international support for natural disasters and conflicts could and should be extended and adapted for outbreaks, with adjustments for the particular challenges posed by infectious hazard management. This could include inviting the heads of agencies not part of the the United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee who have expertise in infectious diseases to participate in the deliberations of the Principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee concerning such events. Based on these discussions, in June 2016 the Director-General and the Emergency Relief Coordinator will propose the development of standard operating procedures to this effect to the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, which is convened by the Coordinator and brings together United Nations emergency agencies, networks of nongovernmental organizations, and humanitarian organizations (for example, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies). Progress in this regard will be among the issues reported to the global health crises task force that is established by the United Nations Secretary-General to monitor implementation of the recommendations of the High-level Panel on the Global Response to Health Crises. Oversight of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme 14. On 29 March 2016, the Director-General established the Emergencies Oversight and Advisory Committee to provide oversight and monitoring of the development and performance of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, guide the Programme s activities and report findings through the Executive Board to the Health Assembly. 1 Reports of the Committee will be shared with the Secretary General of the United Nations and with the Inter-Agency Standing Committee. 15. The Emergencies Oversight and Advisory Committee meets for the first time on 5 May 2016 to plan its work for the remainder of The Committee consists of eight members who have extensive experience in a broad range of disciplines, including public health, infectious diseases, humanitarian crises, public administration, emergency management, community engagement, partnerships and development. Implementation plan for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme 16. Having completed the design of the new Programme, the Organization is initiating a transition phase, with the goal of establishing the new structure and positions across headquarters, all six regional offices and the first set of priority countries by 1 July 2016, and of completing the transition of existing staff into the new structure by 1 October Giving the new structure the capacity to perform its functions will require the recruitment of a substantial number of additional staff, with new skill sets, over a period of months. 17. By end-2016, WHO will seek to have the new teams for health emergency information and risk assessment and for preparedness monitoring and evaluation functioning at headquarters and in all six 1 See (accessed 2 May 2016)

11 Annex regional offices. The end of 2016 has been set as the target for staffing the basic, essential functions of the new emergency operations teams at headquarters and in the Regional Office for Africa and the Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, which currently manage the majority of WHO s protracted emergency response operations. During this period, the Secretariat will work to establish appropriately staffed emergency management teams, including Health Cluster Coordinators, in at least 10 priority countries affected by protracted crises. Staffing the remaining priority positions in headquarters, regional offices and priority countries will be completed by end Work to implement the new emergency management and administrative processes has already begun through the existing structures for WHO s work in emergencies. For example, since February 2016, the new WHO incident management system has been applied to support major new emergencies including the Zika virus-related Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the yellow fever outbreak in Angola and the El Niño phenomenon in Ethiopia. Similarly, standard operating procedures for the Contingency Fund for Emergencies have been developed and, as at 18 April 2016, US$ 6.89 million had been disbursed for five crises. 1 In all cases funds were made available to the Incident Manager within 24 hours of approval. 19. Significant progress has also been made to strengthen the Global Health Emergency Workforce. Emergency medical teams continue to join the WHO-led quality assurance process with 59 teams from 26 countries now in process. In future work, WHO will give priority to establishing national emergency medical teams that can deploy locally in high-vulnerability countries, and to rapidly strengthening the Health Cluster leadership and capacity in priority countries. In parallel, WHO is strengthening the secretariat of the Global Alert and Response Network, and enhancing its advocacy work, to enhance the capacity of partners in the Response Network to systematically support WHO and Member States in alert detection, risk assessments and rapid response activities. Financing the WHO Health Emergencies Programme 20. Financing the work of the new WHO Health Emergencies Programme will require a combination of core financing of the Programme for baseline staff and activities at the three levels of the Organization, full financing of the WHO Contingency Fund for Emergencies to enable it to rapidly initiate operations in acute emergencies, and crisis-specific financing for activities in protracted crises (for example, for the health component of humanitarian response plans). The WHO Programme budget includes US$ 334 million in budget space for activities and staff that would be transitioned to the new WHO Health Emergencies Programme. This figure includes US$ 70.6 million of the 8% increase in the Programme budget that was agreed by the Sixty-eighth World Health Assembly Implementing the new Health Emergencies Programme against the planned timeline outlined in paragraphs 16 and 17 above requires an additional US$ 160 million in core financing for the Programme during the biennium (US$ 60 million in 2016 and US$ 100 million in 2017), as part of a total budget of US$ 494 million for the new Programme in this biennium. The one-off, start-up costs for establishing the new Programme are US$ 8 million (exclusive of new IT investments), thus the requirements from 2017 onwards represent fixed or recurrent costs requiring sustainable financing. Forty-four percent of these requirements are at country level, 26% at regional level and 30% at headquarters. Of these core costs, 38% are for emergency operations, 16% for risk assessment and information management activities, 16% for Member State preparedness and 1 See (accessed 2 May 2016). 2 See resolution WHA68.1 (2015)

12 Annex International Health Regulations (2005), and 12% for infectious hazard management, with the balance for core services and related functions. The core budget to fully implement the planned capacities and activities of the new Programme in the biennium is US$ 630 million. 22. As at 22 April 2016, WHO has received US$ 140 million against the US$ 494 million core budget required for its Health Emergencies Programme in , and US$ 26.9 million in funding and pledges against the US$ 100 million capitalization target for the new Contingency Fund for Emergencies. Further financing is required for activities that are conducted in response to specific emergencies and events, whether acute or protracted. 23. In order to provide a sustainable solution for closing the substantial financing gap for WHO s new Health Emergencies Programme additional voluntary contributions will be required, ideally combined eventually with additional assessed contributions, in keeping with the expansion of WHO s mandate to include a substantive operational role in emergencies. Recognizing the urgency of establishing and rendering operational the new Health Emergencies Programme, in June 2016 the Director-General will convene a meeting of existing and potential donors and interested parties for this purpose. ACTION BY THE HEALTH ASSEMBLY 24. The Health Assembly is invited to note the report and to consider the following draft decision: The Sixty-ninth World Health Assembly, having considered the report on the reform of WHO s work in health emergency management, 1 decided: (1) to welcome the progress made in the development of the new Health Emergencies Programme, the elaboration of an implementation plan and timeline for the new Programme, and the establishment of the Emergencies Oversight and Advisory Committee; (2) to encourage ongoing collaboration with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to enhance humanitarian system-wide coordination of the response to large-scale infectious hazards in the future; (3) to note that the overall budget for the Health Emergencies Programme and its new operational capacities will be US$ 494 million for the biennium , representing a US$ 160 million increase over the current budget for WHO s primarily normative and technical work in health emergency management; (4) to approve an increase of US$ 160 million for the Programme budget to initiate the implementation plan for the new Health Emergencies Programme, and to authorize the Director-General to mobilize additional voluntary contributions to meet this financial need for the biennium ; (5) to request the Director-General to report to the Seventieth World Health Assembly, through the Executive Board, on progress made and experience gained in establishing and operationalizing the Health Emergencies Programme. 1 Document A69/